Ryan Giggs believes Nani is finally beginning to realise his potential and he could soon be as good as Cristiano Ronaldo was for Manchester United.

Nani has flourished this season, helping to fill the void left by Antonio Valencia's serious injury by making a place in the side his own.

The Portuguese midfielder has already contributed two goals and five assists to United's Premier League campaign. He scored twice for his country in Friday's 3-1 Euro 2012 qualifying defeat of Denmark and provided the third for Ronaldo.

Giggs told the People: "I think Nani is ready to step up to that next level now. He has always been a match-winner but he needs to do it consistently. This season he has already made seven or eight goals and scored a couple but he can do better as well and improve and there is more to come.

"He's definitely beginning to add something that perhaps we lacked since Cristiano left and he's filling that gap better now. Those strikes from outside the box and the type of run and goal we saw at Bolton recently show that he's got that in him.

"What he needs to do now is add more goals to his game. He needs to score 20 goals a season and make 20 goals. If he does that - and he is capable of it - that is all you can ask from a wide player.

"I am obviously one of the senior players here now and I speak to the wingers all the time about positional play. When they first come they probably don't know their defensive duties as well in 4-4-2.

"But I've played a lot of that and I understand what is needed from a player who plays out wide and has an attacking role. You speak to those in your position all the time and Nani is very good at listening to that kind of advice.

"I have experience to pass on to the younger players and I do that with Nani. He needs to get more composure in the final third but he is still relatively young and I am certain he will add more goals to his game."

Giggs, who turns 37 next month, never believed he would still be playing to this age.

He said: "When I joined United I honestly never thought it would last this long. At the start you just set little goals, like get to the first team. Then you get more greedy and you want to win things and score more goals.

''When I was 18 or 19, Bryan Robson was 35 or 36 and the thought of me playing at that age was a million miles away. But it's here now and I'm passing advice on to the young lads like Robbo did to me.

"Paul Scholes and Gary Neville started here the same time as me but we don't really talk about the journey we've had. We talk more about what we are ­going to do when we finish. There is a great banter between us, but we don't talk about what we've achieved because at United you ­always look forward never back.

"I'm sure if we meet in a pub in five years time then we will talk about that then.

"I've been lucky to have stayed at United all my career but it can be hard for other players. For me, there's not been many times when I've not been getting picked. There's the odd time where there's a loss of form, you're dropped or you don't play the odd game - but I knew that if I played well I would get back in.

"But some players like Phil Neville and Nicky Butt, who are great friends of mine, left because they were not playing regularly. I wanted them to stay but I would never have told them to stay because there are different circumstances.

''I've always played at a club that has won things and always been up there so others might want to go to a bigger club - and why not? Some players move around a lot but it's just what football is like at the moment compared to how it was 20 or 30 years ago."